Ok turns out I took more photos that I remembered. All this can be discerned form the service manual, but hopefully this writeup will save someone some time, or encourage someone to proceed. Again, this modification is necessary if you have a HP1740a with option 101 and want to use the A vs B (XY mode).
Overview photo showing wires that will be removed.
. First, check to see that to make sure your A3 board has these components: a3c77 capacitor, a3cr28 diode, a3Q21 transistor(actually marked on board), a3139,140 resistors. The sm states that these components are omitted, but at least on my unit, were present.
clip wires, yel/pink. remove 2 resistors, the ones closest to clipped wires (a3 board).
Clip blue and white wires from a7 board.
Remove 4 diodes from a7 board, marked "option."
On a3 board, move one diode marked option, and solder it next to row of 3 other identical diodes.
Here is the modified a3 baord.
Here is the interface assembly board that comes on the option 101 units. Notice all the components? The regular interface board has none of these.
This last step is the one I initially didn't think to do. 4 traces on the interface assembly must be cut. First I tried to desolder the 3 traces that terminate mid board, but I didn't succeed in breaking contact until I used a small drill PARTIALLY drill through board. Finally I cut the last trace with a small file. I'm sure you can think of a cleaner way to do this, but this is what I did.
Playing some music through unit in A vs B mode!